1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a portable, computer-peripheral apparatus comprising a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector. The apparatus enables automated access to content, or automated initiation of a task or other process.
USB is a serial bus standard; devices connecting using the USB standard must have a physical connector that conforms to the standard: there are currently many applicable plug designs (e.g. Series A, Series B, Mini A, Mini B); the USB standard also evolves to cover new plug designs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many and varied tasks that can be initiated and content that can be accessed using a personal computer, either locally or remotely via a network. Current options for accessing these tasks or content are typically performed by the user navigating through or interacting with the PC operating system (OS) or a software application using generic input apparatus such as a keyboard and mouse. These navigations and interactions can be complex and lengthy, making them hard to remember; and they are often an abstract set of user actions that have no direct representational relationship to the task or content.
The typical options for accessing tasks or content on a PC using the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the OS, as described above, present several problems to the user; certain tasks are hard to remember, non-descriptive and non-portable. The user faces increased difficulty when using a PC he is not familiar with, such as a friend's computer or one set up for multiple users, such as a computer in a public place, for example an airport.
Further, a non-computer-literate user (for example a child, an old person, or a technophobe) cannot be expected to manage complex interactions to get to a task, such as navigating to a URL, but may be quite happy to interact once they are there—they understand the value in the task, not the complicated process to get to it. An example of the problem stated above is:
A user is unable to access their web-mail easily, particularly a new subscriber, because they have to remember a long sequence of actions, such as the correct website URL, their username and password. A typical set of tasks for this function is too complex to be readily remembered by a user—for example:                Select a text based menu item from a set of drop-down menus within the OS to start a browser application;        Then type in a URL address in the form of a text string;        Navigate to the login page;        Enter a username and password.        
A secondary problem that has been identified is that most interactive peripheral hardware such as application-specific input devices usually requires a second step after physically connecting to a computer, such as installing a driver or software. So in cases where application-specific input devices have been created, they are often complicated to set up and are not very portable—being unable to operate with computers that do not have the required drivers or software.
Existing solutions that relate to the problems outlined above are:                Compact Disks (CD) with autorun files (for example, a CD business card) that automatically launches an application or setup wizard on the CD        “Hotkeys”, such as those found on certain ‘Logitech’ USB keyboards or other PC peripherals, that can perform a series of tasks or actions from a single key press.        Programmable Keyboard-Macro devices that can be user-programmed with key sequences for example, PI Engineering's X-Keys range of products (refer to U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,075).        USB mass storage devices with specific files or software preinstalled, (such software needing to be manually selected and run by an operator) offering physical and portable access to predefined, or user-defined content. It is also possible to include an ‘autorun’ file on a USB drive: a user typically plugs a USB drive into a PC and the USB automatically generates data that emulates the operation of a CD. But it is possible to block this kind of CD emulation at the operating system level (and for security reasons, e.g. reducing the risk of viral infection, blocking could become increasingly common).        